Many of you Elements users have commented or emailed that with the release of my Photoshop actions last week, you felt a little like a kid with his nose pressed against the glass, watching the other kids play. And I get it! I used Elements for quite awhile before switching over, so I’m, like, totally down with you homies. But this morning, it occurred to me that the very first action in the set, called “Fresh and Colorful”, actually has no Photoshop-exclusive steps at all! The only thing preventing you Elements users from executing the action is that Elements doesn’t support actions in quite the same format Photoshop does. But if you don’t mind clicking around for a couple of minutes, you can achieve the exact same results of that action. C’mon! I’ll show you!

Here’s the SOOC (straight-out-of-camera) shot of Josh extinguishing fire a couple of weeks ago. It’s okay. But it isn’t great. It’s a little dark and drab.

So let’s open the photo in Elements. And gosh, people—there is nothing wrong with this program. It can do a heck of a lot of stuff—in many cases, more than you’ll ever need. Amen.

First, hit Control-J (Command-J on Mac) to create a duplicate layer of your original photo. (Remember, this is essentially an exact copy of your original photo, laid on top of the original.) I’m lame and forgot to zoom in on this one, but if you squint you can see the new layer (“Layer 1″) in the Layers palette on the bottom right.

Now hit Control -J (Command-J) again to create another duplicate layer. I’m lame and forgot to zoom in on this one, too, but you’ll see the other new layer (“Layer 1 Copy”) in the Layers palette on the bottom right.

Now, double click on the top layer and change its name to “Soft Light.” (You don’t have to change the names of the layers. I just do it to make things more identifiable later.) Next, with the top layer selected (highlighted) change the blend mode from “Normal” (default) to “Soft Light.” This should dramatically change the appearance of your photo.

Next, change the name of Layer 1 to “Light”. (Again, what you name the layers is totally arbitrary and has nothing to do with the appearance of the photo.) Then, change the blend mode from “Normal” to “Screen.” At first, the photo will appear overly bright, but don’t be concerned. We’re going to fix that.

Look at the Opacity amount. Decrease it from 100% (default) until the photo reaches the correct brightness.

Now’s the time to fiddle around with the opacity of both the Soft Light layer and the Light layer until you reach the desired effect. Different photos will require different levels of Light and Soft Light, and playing with the opacity of the layers is the best way to customize the look of your photo.

Now go up to the top toolbar and click Layer>>New Adjustment Layer>>Hue/Saturation. The Hue/Saturation window should pop up. What we’re going to do now is give the photo just a minor boost in the overall color saturation. Always be careful not to overdo this step, as it can be pretty harsh and freaky if you’re not careful. See the drop-down box that reads “Master”? Highlight it and change the value to anywhere from 10 to 15. Then, using the drop-down menu, enter the following values (play with it according to your own photo):

Again, the above values are just suggestions; you’ll want to watch the photo you’re editing and boost the color accordingly. I generally leave off increases in Red and Magenta because they always seem to flub up skin tones.

Okie Dokie! NEXT…(And again, I forgot to do this screenshot. Look, I’m sorry. I have multiple punks biting my ankles and it’s distracting) we’re going to FLATTEN the image, meaning we’re going to turn all these layers into one. Go to the top menu again and click Layer>>Flatten Image. You’ll instantly see that all the different layers are gone.

Now for the last step! We’re going to sharpen the image.
Go to the top menu and click Enhance>>Adjust Sharpness. The Unsharp Mask window pops up. Start by entering the following values:

Amount: 75%
Radius: 1.5
Threshold: 1

Again, you can up the Amount according to how much sharpening you need. (But as with the Hue/Saturation adjustment, try not to overdo it!)

And that’s it! I just told you how to achieve the “Fresh and Colorful” look in the PW Action set. And the thing I like about it is, you can play with the opacity of each layer to make the photo just right. The opacity slider is your friend!

So here’s the final image:

I think it could still stand some more sharpness, but you get the general drift.

Here’s the before-and-after:

No more pressing your nose against the window, my friends! I’m all out of Windex, anyway.

Actually, I don’t have company coming over. No one ever comes over. So go ahead and press your nose on the window if you want—the smudges will blend in with all the fingerprints. And the dog saliva.

115 Comments

Yeah! I have a trial version of Elements after I used my trial version of Photoshop up and it is considerably different and now you are making me one step closer to feeling comfortable in the “layers” world.

Thanks so much for sharing your knowledge in such a straight forward “I won’t make you feel stupid” way!

3

Laura S On Thursday, April 17 at 8:34 pm

What a gorgeous difference in the sky and grass, even the color of the fire.

Dot O On Thursday, April 17 at 8:57 pm

I use ACDSee, a cheap program I got a Target, that has an even odder name.

Why do I bore you with the gory details?

Because I am finding that if I go through and read the tutoritals, I am able to pick up hints and pointers and expand on my current software. I might purchase Lightroom, as I have found ways for it to enhance my ACDSee program.

So you see? No matter what program ANYONE uses, there are tricks that can be applied!

Neat-o.

God bless!
Amanda

11

Marilyn On Thursday, April 17 at 9:00 pm

I’m new to Flckr and I’m missing something that is probably obvious to everyone else!! How do I upload your pictures to the PWActions Group???

Thanks.

12

Leslie On Thursday, April 17 at 9:08 pm

THANKS A MILLION!!! Your explainations are the only ones that don’t terrify me. I opened Elements and clicked back and forth and did it one step at a time. I can’t thank you enough for walking me through this.

I just had a “duh” moment. I never thought of renaming my layers for what I was doing with them. Why didn’t I ever think of that? I knew that option was there, but never saw the point until you pointed it out then it hit me like a brick “duh!” LOL So obvious…

Anyway, from this PSE3.0 user, thanks for this breakdown and explanation. I had never mixed soft light and screen together like that but WOW! I see it happening a lot in my future now.

Oh, thank you P-Dub!!! I can’t wait to begin playing. I know you are a busy gal who gets a gazillion e-mails and responses. Maybe I’ll try to go to your Flikr site and post some of my pics that I”ve played with. I’ve put them periodically on my blog.

whoa is me….I mean woe is me..now I’m sad again, because much to my dismay, I realized I have an old version of elements…as in Elements 2.0. And the 6.0 is spendy too. At least for moi! I can’t find anywhere that I could upgrade, so I guess I’m out of luck. What a bummer. I think I have issues with always wanting the updated version of things…I’ve even only had my Nikon D50 for 2 years and often think, gee, it’d be cool to have the latest model…oh, do I need help!

26

Marilyn On Thursday, April 17 at 10:36 pm

Ahhhhh.. I just figured out how to send my pictures to the PWActions group. Just didn’t see the option buttons under the picture name until now

27

jen On Thursday, April 17 at 10:55 pm

Thank you thank you thank you!!!!!!!

I feel like someone opened the candy store really earyl.

Jen

28

nlowen On Thursday, April 17 at 11:01 pm

Fantastic! I’ve been playing with Elements for a while but nothing like what you’ve shown here. I love it!

Meghan-Rose On Thursday, April 17 at 11:11 pm

Yay I’m so glad you posted this!! I’ve been playing around with Elements for about 2 weeks now, going through your old Photoshop posts and making them work with Elements. This was really fun to follow, thanks!

oh! thank you, thank you, thank you! You are my hero.
Now, if you could just teach me how to do the quick edge burn in elements, I’d love you forever. Not that I don’t already. Not like a stalker or anything. Just like you know friendly internent blog love.

I’m back. I gave it a try. When I was working with the saturation I was not seeing any difference but I went ahead with each step. When I finished I clicked on the eye (repeatedly) of the hue/saturation layer and presto! The change was subtle yet powerful. Thank you for the tutorial. You are pushing me to branch out and learn more functions. Thank you SO much for that!!!!!

Thank you so much for this tutorial! I’m still a newbie when it comes to Photoshop, but thanks to yours & Miss Booshay’s direction I’m making progress. I love seeing what I can do with my photos.

34

rsmdianne On Friday, April 18 at 12:05 am

After 15 years with a pc, I have a beautiful new 24 inch iMac and just bought Elements 6 for Mac the day it came out 2 weeks ago to try it out with my D40. I haven’t been having very much fun with it because I can’t find anyone who can hold my hand. It’s supposed to work with iPhoto, which is where I want to save my pictures so I can find them, organize them etc. And the big reason is, I was appointed team photographer for my 9 yo dd’s soccer team and I need to create a dvd of the season to play at the team party and distribute to the girls. I think I can do the iMovie part (I took a One to One lesson at the apple store), but I can’t for the life of me figure out how to save photoshop edited pictures back in my iPhoto program because I know how to make the iMovie from iPhoto and “events.” Apple can’t help me because they’re not Elements experts and the moron I got at Photoshop on the phone had the nerve to tell me that Elements won’t work with iPhoto when I called to find out why my Mac kept CRASHING when I tried using Elements (even though it’s won some MacWorld award and it says “WORKS WITH iPHOTO” on the Elements box! Finally the nice man on the phone at apple told me how to edit the photos I have in iPhoto with Elements, but where do I go from there???

35

Linda On Friday, April 18 at 12:20 am

Thank you, thank you. This post was just the inspiration I needed to hide out from my punks tonight, and play. Even though I knew some things, just walking through the steps was fun and got me thinking about fun other things I could do.

rsmdianne- Mine doesn’t crash, but I discovered when I switched to Mac that if you want to save your elements-edited pictures back into iphoto, you have to use the same filename. If you change the filename then it won’t show up in iphoto.

Ree, thanks so much for this! I’ve never combined that many steps before, but it totally makes a difference. When you have time please translate some more actions into PSE! Although I also don’t have an adjust sharpness, I had to do it through the filter menu.

Maybe everyone already does this…I do a lot of “Save as” as I’m going along…especially before flattening. That way, it is easy to go back and “redo”…

I used Elements for a year before getting PS and I’m glad I did. I’m a programmer but the graphics stuff baffled me. Elements was the right start for me – still felt a bit lost when I first started PS.

Kasey On Friday, April 18 at 6:55 am

Janet On Friday, April 18 at 7:04 am

I just got Elements for my birthday and I’ve been too intimidated to even open the box yet! I’m going to play around with it this weekend. With your instructions, I’ll even have something to show for it. Thanks, P-Dub!

A big ole THANK YOU is definitely in order here! I’m anxiously waiting on Scott Kelby’s new book for Elements 6.0 which was just released last week, to arrive in my mailbox! But this lovely tutorial will give me something to play with until then.

Per your recommendation…..I previously ordered two of his Digital Photography books and LOVED them. So I can’t wait to get this one for Elements! He is the Patron Saint of Photography!!!!!

45

Beth On Friday, April 18 at 7:47 am

Michelle On Friday, April 18 at 7:54 am

Thanks for this Ree – I will probably never be able to justify the cost of PS. I use Elements and the latest version of Paint Shop Pro [a very good program for the price]. I look forward to fooling around with these ideas and can’t wait for you to do more of these conversions for Elements.

49

honeyheaduk On Friday, April 18 at 8:04 am

Found your blog only this week and I’m hooked … what wonderful images and such a different way of life to my own here in England. Please more on Elements if you can .. I find the way you explain the steps so easy to follow. Thanks! ttfn …

50

Emma On Friday, April 18 at 8:11 am

So is Josh still single?? :o)

51

Dana in RI On Friday, April 18 at 8:18 am

I actually figured out how to load your actions in CS3 last night, oh boy did I have fun!!
I have uploaded to Flickr before, but I am with Marilyn, can’t seem to figure out how to get them to the PW group…can we have a few instructions for the visual learners?
Thanks!!

Thank you Ree! But I think I’m in trouble. I’ve already burned my English Muffin because I’m totally engrossed in this and it doesn’t look good for Mt. Laundry either. My house will never be clean again! (but my pics will look fab – so I’m OK with that!)

Maria from COLOMBIA On Friday, April 18 at 8:59 am

THANK YOU SOOO much for your detailed, step by step instructions/pictures. It makes it SOOOO much easier for those of us who are a bit challenged / chicken to make changes. It is sort of like you are sitting here holding our hand saying “It’s all right..you know you want to.”. Thanks PW!

Okay, that was really cool! And you’re giving me hope that my blah SOOC shots could have new life breathed into them with the proper editing tools!

61

Jennifer On Friday, April 18 at 9:38 am

Thanks P-Dub! Being the youngest I always get the left-out feeling and you made me feel so much better! YOU ROCK!

62

Cheri On Friday, April 18 at 9:55 am

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! I just closed on a new house yesterday, and I need to buy new furniture. So there is not any extra money lying around to upgrade Photo Shop. I was so disappointed that I wouldn’t be able to try some of great ideas! You made my day! I can’t wait to get home tonight and try it. Cheri

Thanks so much! You are awesome. I have checked out the look of actions and tried to replicate it in elements but it has been so time consuming. I want so badly the full version so all I have to do is click a button and watch the magic happenbut like everything you pay for convience. I appreciate the time you put into this tutorial.

Fabulous! I’ve had PSE since Christmas and haven’t done very much with it –this really gave me a great idea of where to start and it was nice to see a dramatic change in pictures. How about a tute for making eyes “pop” in PSE?

e On Friday, April 18 at 12:27 pm

Thank you SOOOO much. I graduated from Brooks Inst. of Photog. about 4 years ago- took one measly class on Photoshop- and through marriage, childbirth, and sleep deprivation, I lost all my PS tools- I was a “digital will never take over film” kind of person- and now, I sit here, eating my words. Thank you for helping my 26 year “old” brain get a makeover PLEASE PLEASE do more of the “Element” step by steps… it was AWSOME!!!!
k

69

mom to 4 girlz On Friday, April 18 at 1:39 pm

This Elements user is forever loving you for this!!! More, more, more, I say….Gotta get those eyes to pop in Elements too! Thanks!

70

Kris On Friday, April 18 at 2:02 pm

I tell ya, with every tutorial you do, I think I’m in heaven! I jsut remessed with pictures I’d already messed with, using this technique, and the difference is phenomenal!!! thanks so much for doing something just for us lowly elements users. Do more!!! Please?

So glad I found you. Thank you so much for this clear tutorial. I don’t even own the PSE, only a free photo-editing program that came with my previous point & shoot, it’s outdated software, but it has a layers funcionality. I learned a lot today by messing around with lightning, blending and colours in various layers. I’m happy

73

Dana H On Friday, April 18 at 3:57 pm

Ree, after reading your post and feeling a little like a child that just got a good talkin’ to on if you can’t say something nice don’t say it all I feel led to sincerely apologize to all the workers and head honchos over at Elements for saying that ‘elements sucks bugs’ I guess they don’t and I will not speak any ill will their way from now on. When I get home I plan on trying out my new bit of info and see how it goes. Thanks and please please keep them coming.

Jessica On Friday, April 18 at 4:28 pm

Jodie On Friday, April 18 at 6:36 pm

thank you Ree. cant wait to try it. you are soooo smart. keep all those tips coming to us in elements too. Oh, and how would i do those lovely burnt edges and vintage looks in elements. i have tried for hours trying to follow your cs3 tutorials, but i cant get it. helpppppppppppppppp

YOU are the BOMB-DIGGITTY girlie : ) I am so happy right now! Thanks so much for posting this! I have had Elements for two months now, and even after the tutorial that came with the book, I was still limited to what I could do(or understood how to do). The book and CD-Rom were like a college course. …I struggled, just like back at JSU.. anyway, you helped me! thank you, thank you, thank you
Very happy, very happy, very happy……….
Bring on some more : )
Roxanne

e On Sunday, April 20 at 12:15 am

Love it all, Ree. Thank you. I really like the information on layer masks. I thought I knew all there was to know about PS, but I was sure wrong! You have taught me some very cool things!! You are certainly not only talented, but very generous!

85

Shan On Tuesday, April 22 at 1:41 am

Love this stuff. I’m starting to get addicted to photography. Just curious, is there a way to burn the edges of the photo using Elements? I love how it really brings the focus in on the subject of the photo.

Thank you so much. I have a different version of PS – it isn’t elements but it isn’t full PS either – But with your straightforward explanations I have been able to vastly improve some photos.

Please could you show us how to do an antique type photo using elements?

87

Torey On Tuesday, April 22 at 9:46 pm

Any chance you’d want to do this with the rest of your PS actions? I have Corel Paintshop, but with your step by step instructions I’m able to follow along and replicate it in Paintshop. Unfortunately, there is no way to use the actions in Paintshop. It looks like I have all the commands that Elements has though, so please, please, please do some more step by step tutorials. Please.

88

hil On Wednesday, April 23 at 9:44 pm

Please, please do more of these. Just these steps and playing with these steps has given me so many options! Thank you and please, please, pretty please?

I’d like to echo #88. Please do more of these. Although, I’m almost tempted to pay the $580 upgrade fee just so I can use your free templates… but that just seems silly since I don’t even know how to use the one I’ve got right now.

91

Karen On Thursday, May 22 at 4:33 pm

Yes, PLEASE PLEASE PRETTY PLEASE with a cherry on top!! I learn so much from you! I would love to learn more about your actions in PSE. Especially “Lovely and Ethereal” and “Boost.”

92

Elnora On Saturday, July 12 at 11:11 am

Just found your site, and I love it! Your writing style is so entertaining, and your explanations of how to do Photoshop techniques are wonderful! I use PSE 5 and will try out some of your actions.

93

Elnora On Saturday, July 12 at 11:13 am

Oops. Just read that your actions won’t work with PSE. Hope you’ll work on some that do! Love your site anyway, though.

Just wanted to let you know that I’ve been playing around with this today, and what a great way to get to know photoshop a little better! (Even if it is just elements!) Thanks for the tips and the step by step for dummies like me!

97

Charlotte Wilson On Monday, December 15 at 9:48 am

Ree,

Thank you so much! I was wondering if I got the wrong Photoshop software (Elements 7). I printed up your instructions so that when I go home I can work on my photos again. Maybe this time I will get somewhere. LOL

Charlotte Wilson

98

Victoria Sarah On Saturday, December 27 at 6:00 pm

I don’t know if anyone will have any insight on this, but I just got Elements 6 for my Mac for Christmas, and according to my dummies’ guide apparently you CAN use some actions in this program. I tried downloading one of your sets, Ree, but it doesn’t seem to want to show up in photoshop. I followed the instructions in my books (save it with the other .atn files, create a png image to go with it, restart elements) but it won’t show up with the other effects. I’m going to keep plugging away at it but I wonder if it’s a Mac/PC thing or an elements/cs thing, because according to my book the Mac Elements is a very different beast from the PC elements (apparently I have something called Bridge that I haven’t learned how to use yet, among other things).

Anyway. Just wondered if any other Mac users had resolved the action thing. Is there a way to use them, or did I misread my book?